The Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s The Shining is a dynamic antagonist that is able to utilize its evil past to get into the head of its victim, Jack Torrance. King cleverly lines up the troubled and concerning past of the Overlook with the almost tragic and cruel past of Jack Torrance. The Overlook Hotel has quite a devious past. Murders, mafia involvement, and many other atrocities have occurred within its walls. These leave a permanent stain of evil on the hotel that clearly is able to physically manifest itself into something that is capable of hurting people, meaning the hotel’s past is the main contributing factor to the evil forces within it. This is shown constantly throughout the book, like when Danny explores room 217 for the first …show more content…
Blood spurted from her nose” (330). Witnessing this as a child, especially the violent and gory nature of this specific incident, would most likely be a cause for major psychological issues down the road. Not only does it make Jack mentally unstable, but it also parallels his past with the devious past of the hotel. It gives the reader more insight into specifically how the hotel is able to get to Jack so easily, and convince him of these things. It gives him the idea that he is not much unlike his father, and the hotel pushes this idea onto him through its characters from the past which is one of the largest factors in his ultimate demise. Jack’s past traumas do not stop there, however. His father’s abuse of his family continued throughout his childhood, prolonging Jack’s mental strain even longer and making him an even more vulnerable character. Jack’s childhood is not the only aspect of his past that haunts him, however. During a flashback chapter, it is revealed by King that Jack lost his temper as he does commonly, and ended up breaking Danny’s arm in a fit of